David Shrigley's Schnauzer

“Comedy is profundity, it is poetry, the comic things are special."

Mar 08, 2024

Art Dogs is a weekly dispatch introducing the pets—dogs, yes!, but also cats, lizards, marmosets, and more—that were kept by our favorite artists. Subscribe to receive these weekly posts in your email inbox.

Art Dogs update: We’re moving to monthly!

Hi Art Dogs,

Happy March. I hope all is well in your part of the world.

I wanted to send a quick note that I’m going to switch the Art Dogs publishing cadence to monthly (with unpredictable bonus editions sprinkled in). The hope with this is to give myself more space to research and write one really treasured edition a month for y’all. Quality over quantity! Hopefully that’s ok?

Ok, onwards to David Shrigley!

Bailey

Artist David Shrigley. Photo / Craig Gibson

David Shrigley is an artist whose work spans writing, drawing, sculpture, music, and film. The bizarre humor he imbues into his pieces has attracted a cult following. He’s described his own art as “slightly satirical but also serious at the same time,” while critics have called him “the joker with a deadly punchline.”

In 2013, David Shrigley was nominated for the Turner Prize. His sculpture Really Good—a giant thumbs up—was installed on Trafalgar Square's Fourth plinth three years later and he was recently appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). David’s artwork has been shown at MoMA in New York, the Tate Modern in London, and other top galleries around the world. Hundreds—maybe thousands—of people have tattooed his pieces on their bodies.

“Really Good,” David’s sculpture in Trafalgar Square.

David Shrigley as a boy, with a monkey. PHOTO: Simon Crofts

David Shrigley was born in the U.K. in 1968. He spent his childhood in Leicestershire, where his dad was an electrical engineer and his mom a computer programmer. David knew early on that he wanted to be an artist, and recalled later that his more pragmatic parents, “were probably quite unhappy when I went to art school.”1 When working in his studio today, he’s said he is still “thinking about expressing myself the same way I did when I was five years old. I try to make the paintings in the same way, they’re very primitive.”2

David’s parents were devout Christians, but the young artist would renounce religion as a teenager. He maintains, however, that his art is influenced by his parent’s religiosity. “I think it's a positive thing. I think life would be really tedious if we were all like Richard Dawkins,” he once said. “I like my parents and I like that they have a moral framework. It makes as much sense as anything in this stupid life.”

“Leisure Centre,” by David Shrigley, from his final degree show for his masters in Glasgow. The show got panned by professors. Photograph: David Shrigley

David’s career started in Scotland, where he studied at the Glasgow School of Art. He handed out “morbidly funny little books filled with morbidly funny little characters” to friends at gallery openings and slowly built a following.3 By the 1990s, David Shrigley’s work could be found everywhere: “on tea towels, T-shirts, greetings cards, and in books, magazines, galleries, and chainstores. Bands [wanted] to use them on their album covers. Directors [wanted] them to accompany the opening credits of their films. Fans [wanted] them to be turned into tattoos.” By the 2010s, he was winning major awards.

Fortunately for dog lovers, the year before being nominated for the Turner Prize, David and his wife, Kim, got a mini Schnauzer puppy they named Inka. (You can watch a video of David walking Inka from 9 years ago here—starting at 1:00 minute in.)

David Shrigley on X: "Me and my new best friend. Her name is Inka. http://t.co/rZuDOy0C" / X — David with Inka as a puppy in 2012.

David Shrigley on X: "Thank you @cloud7berlin Inka loves her new bed! https://t.co/XQ0qWs5mjo" / X — Inka.

Shrigley, Murray and Shrigley’s dog Inka walk the grounds of the Cromlix hotel — David Shrigley walking with tennis star Andy Murray and Inka in Scotland © Robert Ormerod. Andy Murray began collecting Shrigley’s work after seeing an image of Inka with a red ball, captioned, “His relationship with the ball is more complicated than it first appears.” (see below)

David Shrigley and Inka with Andy Murray.

The couple’s fateful decision to add Inka to their family has led to a slew of dog-inspired Shrigleys.

Let’s take a look at a few pieces for which Inka served as muse.

David shrigley | Surreal art, Painting, Prints

A few years ago, David, Kim, and Inka moved to Brighton, where they now live in a house 10 minutes from the beach. Though the couple doesn’t have children, the artist’s work remains childlike in spirit. In fact, as he’s aged David believes his work is becoming even more cheerful. “Maybe that says something about the time in my life, enjoying the simple pleasures of walking the dog on the beach,” he noted in an interview. “When I was 25, I wanted to watch noisy rock bands, go to New York City. Now I’m happy here with my dog.”

David has two studios in Brighton, one in a disused church and another in the basement of his Victorian townhouse. Inka has dog beds in the studio, where he has served as a companion to David’s prolific art making for 12 years now.

Inside the artist's studio—a paint-splashed sausage dog draught excluder. Image credit: Daniel Stier. Below, a tour of David Shrigley’s studio.

David starts each day in the studio by creating a list of things he plans to draw. He then draws the images on his list, and sometimes adds other elements, like text. In his words, “it just all comes out of my head like water pouring out of a jug.” The pieces he doesn’t like, he throws into the bin. (In the video above, you can see him tear up a picture of Inka.) The ones he does like, he keeps. It’s as simple as that, day after day. “The work is made in the editing,” he’s said. “I make literally hundreds of drawings, and then a much smaller percentage of those become the finished work.”

Here’s how he describes his creative process:

“I have a motto: ‘If you put the hours in, then the work makes itself.’ My work is created through the very process of making it. That’s just how I function. I adapt. I never have a plan.”4

“I know if I make enough stuff some of it will be all right. That's my whole strategy for making art anyway. I just fill the page, fill the space, fill the time I'm given.”5

David Shrigley has created a tremendous, joyful oeuvre by repeating this routine for the last 30 years. Below I’ve gathered some of the drawings and paintings of dogs that made it past his personal quality check. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do, and please let me know in the comments which is your favorite.